RSS: Full text of Dr.VK Saraswat, NITI Aayog at Nagpur

10/22/2015 04:12:00 PM

Dr. VK Saraswat, Member NITI Aayog was the chief guest of RSS Vijayadashami Utsav at Nagpur today. Here is the full text:

Respected
Dr Mohanji Bhagwatji

On
the auspicious day of Vijaya Dashami, I would like to extend to all, my warmest
greetings and would like to thank Dr Bhagwatji for giving me this opportunity
to celebrate Vijaya Dashami with the country’s premier Nationalist Institution
“Rasthriya
Swayamsevak Sangh RSS.

Vijaya
Dasami, a great festival, a part of Indian culture is known for the victory of
Maryada Purushotham Ram, an epitome of virtues over Ravana, an asur and epitome
of evil.Hence, it was a victory of virtue
/ goodness over evil.

Today,
our country is transforming itself from a developing country to “Developed
Nation” by conquering various difficulties coming in the form of evils.Its time for us to take concrete steps to
overcome these difficulties and transform India into a Developed Nation.

But,
before we really embark on the analysis or planning of the steps to be taken
for fighting this battle, it is important for us to understand our country’s
strength and weeknesses.

In
‘Following the Equator” the popular travelogue
Twain published after his return, he writes:

Respected
Dr Mohanji Bhagwatji

On
the auspicious day of Vijaya Dashami, I would like to extend to all, my warmest
greetings and would like to thank Dr Bhagwatji for giving me this opportunity
to celebrate Vijaya Dashami with the country’s premier Nationalist Institution
“Rasthriya
Swayamsevak Sangh RSS.

Vijaya
Dasami, a great festival, a part of Indian culture is known for the victory of
Maryada Purushotham Ram, an epitome of virtues over Ravana, an asur and epitome
of evil.Hence, it was a victory of
virtue / goodness over evil.

Today,
our country is transforming itself from a developing country to “Developed
Nation” by conquering various difficulties coming in the form of evils.Its time for us to take concrete steps to
overcome these difficulties and transform India into a Developed Nation.

But,
before we really embark on the analysis or planning of the steps to be taken
for fighting this battle, it is important for us to understand our country’s
strength and weeknesses.

In
‘Following the Equator” the popular travelogue
Twain published after his return, he writes:

This is indeed India! The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and
fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of gene
and giants and Aladin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the
jungle, the
country of hundred nations and hundred tongues, of a thousand religious and two million gods, cradle of the human
race, birth place of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legends, great grandmother of traditions ….So far as I am
able to judge, nothing has been left
undone, either by man of nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that sun visits on
his rounds.

There
is only one India, he exclaimed “Its marvels are its own, the patents cannot be infringed,
limitations are not possible”.

I
think from this emerged the coinage for India in 2002 “Incredible
India” with characteristic feature as an example “Unity in Diversity”
with Rich Heritage of a civilization which left no stone untouched.

What
is the binding force and common thread that unites this diversity.It is “Bharatiyata”
or “Indianness”.Yes, it is Bharatiyata, value system which is
constant, does not change with time that keeps this great country of vast
diversities together.Bharatiyata in all
Vedic, Budhist and Islamic writings, is derived from the cosmic character of
life.It is regarded as an inherent
property of an infinite, timeless and eternal universe.

Pt
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya conceptualized Bharatiyata which means culture which
unlike western thoughts sees life as an integrated whole.Bharatiyata according to him, can manifest
itself through politics but not through culture. India can offer to world its
cultural tolerance and a life dedicated to duty.

The
building block of our country’s transformation is “Empowerment of Masses from
poverty through strong imperatives for jobs, growth and effective basic
services.

FROM POVERTY TO
EMPOWERMENT

India’s
Human development indicators suggests more widespread deprivation in terms of
quality of life and access to basic services.

680
million Indians cannot meet their essential needs

~50%
of public spending on basic services does not reach the people

46%
of basic services are not within reach for the average household

¾
of the potential impact will come from jobs and productivity growth

580
million people can be economically empowered by 2022

115
million additional non-farm jobs needed over the next decade

70%
increase needed in agricultural yields over the next decade

50%
of public social spending is needed for health care, water, and sanitation, up
from 20% today.

A
new and more holistic measure of income deprivation, the Empowerment Line is an
estimate of the minimum economic cost for a household to fulfill eight basic
needs: Food, Energy, Housing, Drinking Water, Sanitation, health Care,
Education and Social Security.Eight
basic services contribute to a minimum acceptable standard of living are –

2,100
(urban) or 2,400 (rural) calories, including 60 grams protein and 40 grams fat,
per capita per day

Access
to clean cooking fuel and electricity for lighting needs, based on minimum
energy consumption levels

215
(rural) and 275 (urban) square feet of acceptable housing

70
(rural) or 135 (urban) litres per capita per day of piped water supply

Access
to an essential basket of primary, secondary and tertiary health-care services

Access
to primary education and secondary education (substitutable with vocational
training) for all children based on accepted norms

Insurance
to cover income loss based on 2% premium-to-coverage ratio

Empowerment
Line’s minimum standards of consumption are approximately 1.5 times higher than
those implicit in the official poverty line.

Since, majority of our population
lives in villages and life support systems is Agri based, we need to
concentrate on Agriculture for crossing the empowerment line.

INDIA’S Farms :
Harvesting the Future

Some
three hundred million rural Indian live below the poverty line, literacy is
only 46% and only one in five have access to basic sanitation.Although, more than two-thirds of Indians
(833 million people) live in the countryside, agriculture accounts for only
14-15% of GDP.Forty two percent of
Indian’s children under five are under=weight, the second highest figure in the
world.

Can
Indian agriculture help to plant a different kind of future, in which the rural
citizens are more prosperous, its children are more robust, and the natures’
economy is stronger?

Yes,
it can

We
believe in successful future, because we have seen success in the past.Despite poor infrastructure, policy barriers
such as restrictions on procurement and marketing and land laws that prevent
land consolidation.Indian Farmers have
proved admirably resilient.India has
been self-sufficient in food production producing agriculture almost 260
million tons / year and is global leader in producing bananas, mangoes,
papayas, milk, buffalo meat, spices, castor oil and sesame seeds.

With
India’s population growing, food consumption will grow 4% per year.At the same time, consumers in India will
demand high-quality, safe and healthy food.

As
such, with rising economy and favorable policies in the present regime of
governance, this is an important moment for Indian Agriculture.It’s the right time to launch the “second Green Revolution” and be a global agriculture
power house with agriculture output rising to $620 billion by 2030 and the
income of rural citizens rising six-fold and approaching that those in the
cities.

FPOs
and FPCs can help to create the economics of scale and improve productivity by
allowing small farmers to leverage their collective strength and increase their
competitiveness by offering them easier access to credit and technology.These organizations can reduce the cost of
distribution and provide greater marketing power and negotiation capability to
farmers.

4.De-Regulate the Marketing of
Agriculture produce

Allow
farmers to sell their produce straight to markets.I.T should be used for accessing price
information across mandis to prevent exploitation of Farmers

5.Launch a Public Private Export initiative

6.Promote Private Investment

7.Scale up Mega Hubs for processing
of food through “Food Processing Parks”

8.Upgrade Extension services
through private participation to introduce and integrate Science and Technology
into farming systems

9.Establish world-class food and
agriculture universities.Indian
Institutes of Agriculture and Technology to be set up, to create a generation
of agriculture and food experts.

10.Finance
agri-business investment funds.Central
and State governments should contribute 50% to an agri-business investment
fund, with private players supplying the rest.A $500 millions fund should be professionally managed to support 40-50
projects.

This
will usher in “Agriculture Renewal Revolution”.

In
our imagination, we dream of a prosperous and peaceful India and that dream
lives in its villages.

70
years back Mahatma Gandhi declared “India begins and ends in the villages”.Let us make his dream come true.

TRUE EDUCATION

Our present
education is filled with Western ideals—the myth of modern science and
techno-logy. Our ancient scientists and philosophers are being gradually
neglected. None of the Scientific books mention about the
discoveries of gravity, laws of planetary motion, zero, infinity, methods of
plastic surgery etc., made by Indian scientists and philosophers much earlier
than the western world. To fight the hegemony of the West, we need a new kind of
education. In this context, the meaning of “true education” has to be explored.
Perhaps true education enables one to experience the world in a unique way: it
creates wisdom: a humane orientation towards nature, towards labour, towards
fellow beings. It visualises a different kind of society, polity and economy.
The history of post-independence India is full of betrayals. We need to educate
ourselves in order to bear freedom and truth.

True education
really means life experiences which should not be confined to formal education
and specific training only. Above all, education means not to be a calculus,
but how to calculate the real-life situations. The basic purpose of education
remains the development of the human personality.

True education
brings about consciousness. Consciousness brings about revolution. Revolution
brings about change. Change is the law of nature. Law is the code of conduct.
Thus, education without consciousness has no meaning. Education is a lifelong
process. We learn as long as we live. We live to learn but we must learn to
live. The traditional wisdom of India never separated learning from living.

Swami
Vivekananda warned us long ago: “No amount of politics would be of any avail,
until the masses in India are once more well educated, well fed and well cared
for.” For that need-oriented quality education is now desirable for all-round
development of the nation. Therefore, educational standards should emphasise on
quality, not numbers. Certificates of education are limited only to
examinations. There is no yardstick for the examination pattern. More so,
marking systems vary from institution to institution. The examination is not
the balance of knowledge. The examination pattern in our country is not
uniform. Education is in the concurrent list of our Constitution. There is
growing disparity between the state-sponsored educational institutions and
private educational institutions. Growing privatisation of education and
commercialisation of education has converted education into an industry without
its welfare objectives—an immediate production-orientation which is accessible
to very few people.

Lack of true
education and self-control leads to corruption. Corruption is the result of
lack of consciousness and conscience, lust for money, power and position and
materialistic gains with degeneration of moral values. Corrupt tendencies turn
into corrupt practices and habits owing to the prevailing ills of
society—unequal distribution of land, labour and capital.

In order to
acquire true education and to curb corruption, there is a need for sound and
healthy living. For that purpose, incorporation of the age-old Vedic system of
values of life in the human character is required for a corruption-free
society. These values are achar (conduct), vichar(thought process), ahar (diet and nutrition) and vyavahar(interpersonal dealings). True
education—education with consciousness, conscience, and sensitivity—will make a
man conscious of the public issues and give an opportunity to root out every
trace of nepotism, love of power, profiteering and black-marketeering.

HEALTHCARE FOR ALL

Let us look at the state
of health care in India.

From all over the world,
people needing hip replacements, cardiac by-passes, or even bone marrow
transplants are increasingly flocking to India for treatment.Top-flight hospitals in Chennai, Mumbai,
Delhi and elsewhere are performing sophisticated procedures on hundreds of
thousands of ‘medical tourists’ each year thanks to the renowned skill of
Indian Doctors and the comparatively low cost of hospital stay.

Considering how
successful our health-care system has become at delivering effective and
affordable treatment for foreigners, the prospect of decent care for all
Indians might seem to be within our grasp.Unfortunately, that dream remains as distant as ever.

Take infant mortality: At
forty-four per one thousand live births, the rate in India is three times
higher than in china, four times higher than in Srilanka and Thailand, and even
higher than in Bangladesh and Nepal.Equally discouraging are the inequities that exist within our
country.An infant born in Madhya
Pradesh is six times more like than her peer born in Kerala to die before her
first birthday.

Forty-two percent of Indian children under five years suffer
from undernutrition.India accounts for
a third of the world’s measles deaths and a third of TB cases.And within India, vast inequities are
apparent on all these indicators across states, and within states, across
urban-rural, education, income, gender and caste divides.

Healthcare and Economy

Due to a high proportion of cardiovascular deaths occurring in
the age band of thirty-five to sixty-four years, India is estimated to have
lost 9.2 million potentially productive years of life in 2000 and is projected
to lose 17.9 million years in 2030.

Public financing of health, at 1.04 percent of gross domestic
product, is among the lowest in the world, especially when measured in per
capita terms.As a result, the average
Indian consumer pays 70 percent of his or her health care costs out-of-pocket –
again a mark of dubious distinction at the global level.

The health workforce is also deficient in numbers and
maldistributed in favour of cities.There are shortages across the board of specialist and basic doctors,
nurses, allied health professionals (such as technicians and paramedics), and
community health workers.

Indian Health System

Though the Indian health
system was originally designed to deliver most of the services through the
public sector, the private sector consistently grew in strength from the 1980s
and has now become the major provider, by default.However, the care offered ranges from the
unqualified solo rural practitioner to the large urban corporate hospital.The weak regulatory systems do not ensure
quality or cost control.If universal
health coverage is to be carried out in such a mixed health system, it is
necessary to ensure that both public and private sectors work in tandem, within
a well-designed and adequately regulated framework that ensures equity, access,
quality and affordability.

12th Plan has
initiated major programmes namely –

National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) initiated in
2005 has improved access to maternal and child health services in many states

Janani Suraksha Yogna offers cash
incentives to enourage pregnant women below the poverty line to give birth in
medical facilities rather than house

Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yogna (RSBY) is a national
health insurance programme that subsidises hospital care for unorganized
workers and other vulnerable groups

Present
Government has converted the National Rural Health Mission into National Health Mission in order to provide Health
for all.

e-Health

With
the growth of ICT in the country, almost universal use of smart phones and
broad-band internet connectivity reaching most of the villages, I strongly feel
we need to utilize e-medicine – the main tool for rural health care.It can provide access to health care for the
citizens at any time and at any place. E-Health
provides remote care to people in rural areas. It can avoid patients
travelling long distances to cities for treatment of even the common
ailments.Even, the X-Ray Images,
Pathological information, MRI etc., can be uploaded to tertiary health care
units from primary health centres for diagnosis.This will also solve the problem of our
doctors not willing to serve in villages.

The
new Swasthya (health tablet) has been introduced in India to perform diagnostic
tests (such as blood pressure or blood sugar readings) remotely, at a fraction
of the cost of traditional diagnostics.

Operation
ASHA has treated more than 30,000 tuberculosis patients in India and prevented
millions of additional cases.

While
a sound health care infrastructure can be created with investment, the success
of the system will depend upon the dedication and sincerity of “Doctors” who
form the nerve centre of the health care system.Only when doctors follow the Hippocratic oath
in letter in spirit, the health care system can achieve high performance
standard.

The oath prescribes standards of performance: the physician is
enjoined to do no harm, to respond to calls without attention to personal
preferences; to keep confidences, to lead an honorable life, to use medicines
only for curative purposes, and to desist from exploiting the patient.

SMART VILLAGES

India
has witnessed major Urbanisation in recent times, with an estimated 30 people
leaving Rural India for urban areas every minute during the next 20 years. At
this rate, country would need some 500 new cities in the next two decades.

By
2050 it is estimated that India’s Urban population will constitute nearly half
of country’s total population. 250-300 million more people will have to be
accommodated in cities.Most cities are
likely to double their size

Electricity

Of
the 1.4 bn people of the world who have no access to electricity in the world,
India accounts for over 300 million.

Water

Only
74% of Urban households in India are served by piped water supply.No Indian city has piped water 24 hr a day,
seven days a week – 4-5 hr of supply per day is the average.

Infrastructure

Despite
increased investments in Infrastructure, an estimated $ 1 Trillion in
infrastructure improvements will be required to meet the country’s resource
need over the next five years.

Transportation

The
number of private vehicles in India is expected to grow by more than three
times by 2021.

Global
Warming

By
2020 India is expected to become the world’s third largest emitter of
Carbon-Di-Oxide (China, USA, India

Urbanisation
& GDP

Urban
areas contribute a higher share of the GDP.Indian Urban Population (around 31%) today contributes over 60% of
India’s GDP.It is projected that Urban
India will contribute 75% of national GDP in next 15 years.

That
is why cities are referred to as ‘Engines of
Growth’ and ensuring that they function as efficient engines, is
critical for our economic development

People
migrate to cities primarily in search of employment, economic activities and
better quality of life.

In
my opinion urbanization does not mean migration of rural people to urban areas
and living a life of deprivation, joblessness and spoiling the environment and
social fabric by overloading the already inadequate infrastructure of the
cities.

I
think the best approach would be to provide the urban facilities in Rural areas
as suggested by late Dr Kalam under the scheme PURA and longback by Pt Deen
Dayal Upadhyaya while laying down the concept of Integral Village which is
self-sufficient and self-reliant.

All
the basic amenities that make the population empowered viz., Food, Energy,
Housing, Drinking Water, Sanitation, health Care, Education and Social Security
to be provisioned in villages with strong ICT
Connectivity and e-mobility.

Thus
SMART VILLAGES employ innovative services and concepts to improve environmental
sustainability, economic viability and citizen well being by using

(i)ICT based Technologies

High
Speed Networks

Sensor
and Actuation technologies

Advanced
Analytics

(ii)
Non-ICT based Innovative Technologies

Renewable
power generation

Low
Emission Vehicles

Energy
Efficient building design

(iii)
Urban Planning Concepts

Sustainability
enhancing city layouts

Innovation,
Technology and business platform

Attributes of Smart Village

Competitivenessrefers
to a village’s capability to create employment opportunities, attract
investments, experts, professionals and people. The ease of being able to do business
and the quality of life it offers determines its competitiveness

The
20th Century has gone and 21st Century has arrived.The weakness of 20th Century man
was that he was more concerned about his own generation, neglecting the
interest of the future generation.His
comfort oriented outlook and tendency to sow the seeds of destruction in the
name of development were highly dangerous.

The
present world needs a balanced mix of intellectual and spiritual growth.Only through spiritual development can the
concept of development be balanced.

There
are five dimensions of development: -

How
does the development affect an individual

How
does it affect Society

How
does it affect various life forms

How
does it affect environment

How
does it affect the world

For
strengthening the balanced development five dimensions require effort

ØMaterialistic

ØEconomic

ØIntellectural

ØMoral

ØSpiritual

In
the current parlance, this is termed as sustainability.Sustainability has three main pillars namely
Economy, Environment and Society.Only
when these pillars function with complete overlap, then the planet earth will
be liveable for future generations.

Strengthen
global governance – A private and public Governance transformation

As
such, Ecological sustainability reduced consumption, green manufacturing,
education for sustainability, sustainability institutions and sustainable
leaders are to be made as integral part of all development programmes.

üFind
right balance between three ‘E’s – Engineering, Ecology and Economics

Finally
develop Love for Beauty of Nature and deepen it
into a spiritual identity with the living
consciousness of nature.

ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

It is said
that there are three pillars of sustainability: Economic, Social and
Environmental concerns. Generally for centuries these three dimensions have
been remaining in stand alone isolated mode with very little communication
among them. As a result, while god created only the Biological or natural
world, man has created an artificial world by misusing the technological
advances. The rate at which the biological or natural world evolves or moves
into new configuration is much slower compared to the growth rate of artificial
world. Evidently the differential rate of growth strains both the natural and
artificial because the artificial world is embedded in the natural. This
inability to live together is called by Lutmann “the ecological dilemma” of the
present age.

Natural
world has the ability to self organize itself through the ecological and other
kinds of micro-macro relationships. Artificial world also has similar
characteristic but has created some codes and a hyperspace which has Society,
science, technology and economy as its dimensions. We do not know how these
worlds communicate within themselves. Artificial world has problems of high
magnitude due to poor communication within itself, namely -

ØHuman environments are becoming increasingly turbulent

ØSocieties are becoming fragile and fractured leading to
ever increasing conflicts

ØSmall perturbations at any point in the globe are causing
great global disturbances

ØSociety has become generally consumerist causing
tremendous pressure on natural resources and consequent environmental hazards
which are threatening the very existence of humanity.

ØBecause of this, we have landed ourselves in a scary
situation in our quest and relentless pursuit of happiness (materialistic).

ØHow to establish this communication within

Øeach world and between the two worlds?

ØThe man who is the common factor between the two worlds
has to investigate into himself to discover the common language of
communication. Here comes the role of consciousness and the level of
consciousness in himself and rest of the nature. The idea of world spirit may
have some consequences here.World
spirit has two aspects: (a) Creativity (b) Harmonious Unity. When these are
lost due to failure of internal communication, then the cycle of creation and
destruction starts. Development will have a meaning only when our design
processes consciously understand this need for conscious communication at all
levels and societal codes like money and power do not lord over our existence.

ØOne of the
simpler ways of establishing this communication is to respect nature &
reduce the desire to exploit it for man’s own desire and continued enjoyment.
The urge for translation of every scientific discovery into technological
application should be limited. At the level of economy, it should be that its code
i.e. money should create more harmony internally within the society and
externally with nature.

A
spiritual person can play an important role in establishing this communication
between these two worlds and maintain the desired balance leading to sustainability.
Spirituality along with ethics and values have to play a dominant role in the
activity in this space. People think that if we follow business ethics it would
be adequate. For sustainable growth this is inadequate this can be understood
if we can refer to the idea of “Dharmic” behaviour in Indian philosophical
approach to action and life. Dharma is law, duty and something that keeps the
system together always. It can be both of individual and social significance

Since
Engineers are, by and large, responsible for creation of this artificial world
in isolation of Natural/Biological world, they should have the basic ingredient
of spirituality i.e. ethics and values and a communion with the ultimate for
taking decision to maintain and create sustainability. They should have clarity
regarding higher purpose of technology in the evolutionary destiny of humanity
and earth like in ancient Indian concept of SHASTRA. SHASTRA is a holistic
perspective of a human or cosmic activity with three types of knowledge

Spiritual perspective

Ethical or dharmic perspective and

Professional perspective

Finally to
get this important issue of sustainability within the reach of modern man the
following five principles which are ingrained into the concept of spirituality,
are the panacea.

ØSanti, Satyam, Dharma, Ahimsa and Prema.
All the mahatmas of the past have been saying this and the present ones are
alerting us to this.This means:

Ø

“To achieve peace and preserve the coupling recognizing
the existence of the coupling, the ethical and moral activity without
hurting neither living nor non-living nature and with love towards both and
cooperate in the natural evolution of the biosphere”.

Ø

ØCONCLUSION

ØETHICS FOR THE NATION

ØBirth
of a noble nation would need studying the challenges faced by society due to
continuous process of growth and environmental deterioration and promote
conflict free society for prosperity.How can the National Ethics be evolved?

ØA
Nation has to have Ethics in all its tasks for sustained economic prosperity
and peace

ØIf
a Nation is to have Ethics, Society has to promote Ethics and Value Systems

ØIf
Society has to have Ethics and Value Systems, Families should adhere to Ethics
and Value Systems

ØIf
Families have to evolve with Ethics and Value Systems, Parenthood should have
inbuilt ethics

ØParental
Ethics come from great learning, value-based education, creation of clean
environment that leads to righteousness in heart.

ØPRAYER OF PEACE

ØWhere
there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in Character.